The Empress of Salt and Fortune

The Singing Hills Cycle #1

by

eBook, 112 pages

English language

Published March 23, 2020 by Tom Doherty Associates.

ISBN:
9781250750297

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3 stars (4 reviews)

With the heart of an Atwood tale and the visuals of a classic Asian period drama, Nghi Vo's The Empress of Salt and Fortune is a tightly and lushly written narrative about empire, storytelling, and the anger of women.

A young royal from the far north is sent south for a political marriage in an empire reminiscent of imperial China. Her brothers are dead, her armies and their war mammoths long defeated and caged behind their borders. Alone and sometimes reviled, she must choose her allies carefully.

Rabbit, a handmaiden, sold by her parents to the palace for the lack of five baskets of dye, befriends the emperor’s lonely new wife and gets more than she bargained for.

At once feminist high fantasy and an indictment of monarchy, this evocative debut follows the rise of the empress In-yo, who has few resources and fewer friends. She’s a northern daughter in …

2 editions

[Adapted from initial review on Goodreads.]

3 stars

This is a story told through a framing story, bit by bit, so really it is two stories: inner and outer. The inner story I liked quite a bit: both the story itself and the way it's told, which very much requires a framing story, so I like the fact that there is an outer story as well.

Unfortunately I like the framing story itself significantly less. It feels like either too much or too little: the present tense, the dialogue, and the details all make Chih more than a placeholder puppet-figure there to listen and hold the inner story in place. And yet: there's not enough for them to feel like a full character either. I kept grasping for some sort of connection with them and coming up blank.

Regardless, I liked the book overall, and it was certainly worth the read.

Selling points: interesting narrative format; queer representation; …

Engaging idea that didn't quite work for me

3 stars

I love the basic premise of this book: telling a story about a tough, resourceful woman through the framing of an archivist going through objects in her house and getting context for them as flashbacks. It's beautifully written, and the Empress is a compelling character. But somehow the world didn't manage to draw me in. I'm honestly not sure if that's any fault of the book, or just that I'm a bit saturated with new fictional worlds having read a lot of fantasy this year.

avatar for Tak@reading.taks.garden

rated it

3 stars
avatar for Tak@reading.taks.garden

rated it

3 stars